Project Mayhem Mini Series
by alfirin kirinki
Summary: Bobby can't sleep after Alkali Lake and takes drastic action to find rest... SLASH
1. pm1 Like a Bad Star

Like a Bad Star The Storm is letting up, but it won't die. If you weren't wrong, was I?  
  
Bobby Drake stood close to the window, staring down at the grounds to where he could half-see the main entrance to the school. He'd stood there for hours after they had returned from Alkali Lake. He'd stood there until two o'clock in the morning, the time John had always gone to bed. When everyone – or almost everyone – was asleep, the other boy would be either sitting in the second den playing computer games or watching movies that should have been filtered to prevent the younger kids watching them (and had been until John had 'fixed' the box); or sometimes outside throwing a basketball against the wall because he was too much of a bad shot to get it in the hoop and hated to admit it. The persistent bangs would keep Bobby awake for so long that he had to get up and go and play with him to wear him out enough to go back inside and sleep.  
And Bobby stood there again, every night afterward, waiting for John to saunter down the drive or walk into the room, slamming the door open the way he always did. There was a dent in the paintwork where the handle had chipped away at it for so long. But it had been a week and he hadn't come. There was a small, nagging part of him that kept saying, "I ain't coming back, man. I'm gone. Get over it." It was John's voice. It's funny the things you miss.  
Sometimes he sat on the end of his bed, craning awkwardly to still be able to see out of the window. He didn't dare touch the other boy's bed because John had always been so touchy about his possessions. If Bobby or Piotr so much as picked up his shirt to get it off the floor he'd get really pissed with them and act as if they'd borrowed the damn thing then stained it. Not that Piotr would've fitted into one of John's shirts. And neither would Bobby, really. He had longer arms than John.  
Piotr wasn't in their dorm, now. He had it all to himself while the older boy camped out in the younger kids' dorm to reassure them that they were safe. Not that Bobby felt all that safe himself, but he could at least control his fear. And while the room felt lonely without the other two it gave him the chance to be alone. He really needed that, now.  
In the day, Rogue was always there. She had this notion that because his best friend was gone she had to be there all the time to make up for it. She meant well, but it wasn't what he needed. If she could go out and find him – bring him back to where he belonged – then he might be happy, but right now all he needed was time to get used to it. Everywhere felt different. The place was too calm and classes weren't so disrupted. But it felt wrong, and he wasn't the only one who couldn't concentrate. It was too quiet and he was sure John would have loved to see their faces. He knew he was kidding himself if he thought for one minute that John wouldn't enjoy causing a disturbance without even being there.  
But where was he, now? Where the hell had Magneto taken him? Was he even safe? He had posed the same question to Professor Xavier the day after they had returned from the lake, and he had said that Magneto was not planning to kill him. He was just trying to win support from the people who were the future. The ones he could train to fight and see things his way.  
And John was one of those people. He never really cared for humans anyway – they'd screwed up his life and made things so difficult for him Bobby could almost understand what attracted him about Magneto's plans to rule over them and make them suffer the way humans had made him suffer. But it wasn't right. Doing that was just as bad as what the humans had done to them. You didn't fight fire with fire, you fought fire with ice, as Xavier had told him when John had been brought in as a delinquent runaway. He almost felt that John had been his responsibility. That was the point of making Bobby buddy him, wasn't it? And now he'd failed him.  
Bobby sighed and crawled up his bed to curl up on his pillow, resting his head against the wall in the corner, able to see nothing but the white- speckled night sky from this angle. He wished that he had done something to stop him leaving the jet; he usually stopped John from doing stupid stuff, so why hadn't he made him stay? There was a moment that seemed to have gone on forever, when John turned back and stared over his shoulder, asking if he always did what he was told – he already knew the answer categorically – and Bobby realised that this was the last time he was going to see him. It was a sick feeling in his stomach that made him want to throw up right there. But he couldn't follow. He'd sunk down into his seat and put his head in his hands for a few minutes until Rogue had come over and touched his hair with her gloved hand, saying she understood and that she was worried about Wolverine and Jean and everyone, too, but they'd be okay. There was nothing they could do to help anyway – except for maybe one thing.  
Bobby had wanted to tell her that she was wrong, she didn't understand and she didn't realise what was going on. Rogue had asked once if he thought John was jealous of them; he'd said no, but he had meant 'Yes, but not in the way you think'. John needed him more than he needed John, they both knew that. For someone who had been alone and alienated for so long John could be pretty co-dependant. Bobby kinda liked that. He liked being responsible for someone and being needed. Rogue didn't need him, she just liked him for some reason. But John... John used to get mad when Bobby didn't spend enough time with him. He'd never admit that that was the reason, but he'd get moody and wouldn't talk to him properly; he'd make snappy, facetious comments and scorch the wooden ends of Bobby's bed because he knew the smell of burning freaked him out and gave him nightmares. He was such a bastard, sometimes.  
The problem was, most people only saw the moody bastard side of him. John wasn't friendly to people and didn't do himself any favours by acting like an arrogant dick most of the time. But he could be kind in his own way. He'd shove small, obscure gifts into Bobby's hand some times. Probably stolen, admittedly, but people always said that it was the thought that counted, right? One time Bobby'd gotten into bed and curled up with his hands under the pillow, only to have them brush something cold. It was a silver ring with snowflake patterns pressed into it all the way around. John had vehemently denied having anything to do with it, but Piotr had said that he'd caught the dark-haired guy hovering suspiciously near his bed in the afternoon. Piotr thought it was "kinda gay". Bobby never found out whether he meant the ring or the fact John was giving him stuff.  
Bobby studied the ring now, twisting it around his thumb to study each flake in turn. He swallowed and realised that he had a lump in his throat. Damn you, you stupid asshole. He took a deep breath and lolled his head back against the wall again. This was crazy. Why the hell did that crazy old bastard have to take him? Didn't he know that John wasn't meant to be with them? They'd been making such progress with him – when he'd first got there he would throw insane temper tantrums and intimidate the other kids or burn things – but he had calmed down, lately. He was getting in control of himself. John always thought that he didn't fit in, but he was really starting to. He was so nearly there...  
Bobby sat up suddenly. In that small patch of sky he had seen something that looked like a bright orange shooting star. But it had travelled vertically into the air. Shooting up from the ground. He scrambled down his bed and fell off the end in his rush to get to the window. It was him, it had to be! He scoured the grounds in the hope of seeing something – of seeing John standing there with that smirk on his face, waiting to be let in. But he saw nothing. Maybe he was closer to the school? Maybe he'd sent that up to let him know that he was there and to come down and open the doors?  
Bobby raced out into the corridor and skidded around the corner at the end of the hall, took the stairs three at a time and crashed into the door in the kitchen because it was locked and didn't open when he tried to run through it. He scrabbled with the lock and flung it open, racing into the chilly night air. He stared around him, panting, ran a few paces to the edge of the building to see if he was around the corner, raced to the far side to see if he was by the lounge doors. By the time he gave up and padded back towards the kitchen his feet were sore, his chest hurt and he felt like he wanted to cry. He had been so sure that John had been there, waiting to be let in... it felt like all his insides had been ripped out and put back upside down. It wasn't fair. Why did he have to do this?  
He swallowed and rubbed his face as he turned to step up into the kitchen. "Just get used to it, Bobby, I ain't coming back here." He sighed and stumbled to the cupboard to get a drink. He liked them warm, sometimes. It reminded him of... things. He perched on one of the stools next to the counter. This was familiar, he thought with a vague smile. All he needed now was for Logan to come in demanding beer and then for two hundred guys with stun guns to come jumping through windows... He found himself thinking about that night, about running, about having to find Rogue and John above anything else – Rogue because she was a girl and even in a place where most of the girls could (and would) kick the guys' asses he still felt it was his duty to protect her; John because with all those explosions it was reasonable to think that he'd get himself in trouble. He was the sort of guy that liked to pretend he could handle himself, but in the heat of the moment he'd just end up doing something stupid. It was amazing that he hadn't already burnt himself out, really.  
Bobby snorted at the pun and stared down the neck of the cola bottle. Stealing the car with Logan that night hadn't been the first time he'd been in a stolen vehicle. John had a lot of what he liked to call 'Life Experience'. It included having learned how to hotwire a car at the age of twelve. There was one time that he had decided he was bored at one o'clock one morning and somehow Bobby had found himself speeding down deserted roads in the passenger seat of one of the cars the staff used for trips into town (it was kinda hard to find room to park a jet at the local grocery store). That was John all over; inane thrill-seeking and to hell with the consequences. The consequences, when they had inevitably been caught, were a whole month of no privileges. No TV, no video games, no leaving the grounds, but a hell of a lot of chores. John thought it was worth it. Bobby thought they deserved it. The staff thought it was some kind of psychological problem (Intermittent Explosive Disorder, or Sociopathy, or something) on John's part and that Bobby had got pulled in without meaning to be. It wasn't the last time, though. The next time John had made sure that it wasn't a school vehicle and Bobby didn't have a whole lot of choice; but he'd been 'kind' enough to show him how to do it. He'd said it was a 'useful thing to know'. Bobby was yet to find a reason.  
It felt weird to know that John wasn't there. He couldn't go and hang out in the den with him or shoot... well... not hoops, but wall, maybe. There was no one else there that he got along with as well as he did John. Sure, there were moments when John made him want slap him upside the head, but basically, they got on okay. They were even kinda close. He knew John had told him things he'd never tell anyone else, because he trusted him, which was a serious compliment. He'd told John stuff, too. One time by accident; he'd somehow let slip that he'd had a crush on his science teacher when he was still at high school. Later he'd mentioned the same teacher was a guy; John hadn't forgotten and immediately made the connection. But he hadn't freaked out, either. He'd muttered something about Bobby bringing a whole new meaning to Homo Superior and bounced a rubber ball off his head.  
Bobby knew even he underestimated John sometimes. The whole rebel act was so convincing when he wanted it to be, that you almost got fooled by it. John wasn't stupid, though. He kind of absorbed information like breathing. That's why he could act like a jerk in class and still do well enough in exams to get a decent pass or reel off scientific information in the way most people discussed the latest episode of Friends. And creative! There was one time that Bobby picked up a note book and started to flick through it, only to have John snatch it back and tell him to mind his own damn business. He'd been too curious, though, and later he'd dug out the note book again and found it full of sketches and chunks of writing; he hadn't had time to look properly because he knew John would be really pissed if he found out Bobby had snooped, but the creatures he made with fire were testimony enough.  
It made him angry to think about it. John deserved better than this, he was too good to be one of Magneto's puppets. What would they even do to him? He'd heard stuff about Magneto – the kind of convoluted rumours that kids at school told, embellished with improbable and fantastical additions – but it still worried him so much his stomach tied in knots. He had to do something; he couldn't just let John go like that. He needed to be sure that he had other options.  
Bobby took a sharp breath as a thought occurred to him. There was a place – it was an old house on the road out of the east side of the city – John used to go there when he was in a real bad mood. He'd disappear for a couple of days and have the whole place worried sick, then turn up acting as if nothing had happened. He'd shown it to Bobby that time they stole the car from outside the bowling alley...  
Bobby had never dressed so quickly in his life. Within five minutes of having the thought he had changed, stuffed a couple of days' clothes into a bag (and as an after-thought, some of John's) and was throwing up the garage door. He had to try three cars before he found one that had been left unlocked; the staff were wise to it, now, but with John gone... He tugged out the wires from the underside of the steering column and touched the two that John had shown him together. Nothing happened. Starting to panic, he scrambled with two others and his heart leapt into his throat as the engine made a hearty roar. He put the car into gear and raced out of the garage as quickly as possible, terrified that someone would stop him. The school gates and perimeter wall loomed ahead and he took a deep breath as if preparing to plunge into water.  
To his shock, a figure appeared silhouetted in the headlights, standing in the middle of the road. He slammed on the brakes, thinking that there was no way he could stop in time, and the figure seemed to be playing chicken; it didn't run. As the vehicle skidded to a stand-still, the figure leapt back a few feet and ran around to the passenger door. Bobby swallowed hard; he was going to be grounded for the rest of his life if this was Summers. He turned to stare out of the window, only able to see a torso in a sweater he didn't recognise. Then, his heart skipped a beat as a hand came into view and flicked open a shining silver lighter.  
"John?" he gasped, scrambling over to throw open the door.  
Without hesitation, the other boy leapt into the seat and sat grinning at him.  
"Jesus, John, what're you doing here?"  
"I was just about to ask you the same question, man."  
Bobby felt himself blushing and concentrated on his hands, which gripped the steering wheel so tightly he could see them whitening in the moonlight. "I was just... Looking for you."  
"Right. And you have a plan for that?"  
"Uh... well, I was just going to check that place... the one outside of town...?"  
John nodded, looking vaguely impressed. "Put your foot down, man," he said, patting the dashboard and looking back out of the rear windshield.  
Glancing at him, Bobby put the car in gear and they sped off into the darkness. "Why d'you come back?" he asked, shrugging into his seat and trying to get more comfortable. "Where are we even going?"  
John knelt up slightly and, leaning over, pulled him close and gave him a fierce kiss on the cheek, causing the car to swerve dangerously close to edge of the road, before sitting back down and rubbing his palms firmly over the thighs of jeans that weren't his own. "Every Thelma needs a Louise, man," he said kinda awkwardly, resting an elbow on the back of Bobby's seat and casting him a side-long glance.  
"Thelma and Louise?" Bobby echoed, almost laughing. He took one hand off the steering wheel and hovered it for a moment, staring at the side of the other boy's face, before allowing it to drop onto his knee. He figured the kiss was enough of a license to do so.  
"You never heard of them, Iceman?" John taunted, shifting a little nearer.  
"Yeah, I heard of them," Bobby replied, giving him a sly grin, "You ever heard of Bonnie and Clyde?" 


	2. pm2 Hands Against the Wheel

Hands Against the Wheel Every star that I see is Brighter than the last  
  
"We're going to have to stop for gas sometime soon," Bobby said, glancing over at the boy slumped beside him in the stolen car he was driving. "You wanna stop some place and get a room in a motel or something?"  
John looked up at him with rounded eyes, his left hand still fiddling with the seam on the inside of Bobby's knee, and he smirked.  
"Um... I mean – we can get a twin room, right? My parents just gave me my allowance last week, so..." Bobby elaborated, blushing. He had just hotwired a school vehicle, picked up a deviant fellow student who had gone AWOL with their principal's oldest friend and arch-nemesis and who had spent the entire past hour fiddling with his jeans and he was embarrassed about the implications of the phrase 'get a room'? He figured that he was really going to have to toughen up if he was going to see this through. Not that there was any sort of conclusion feasible, as far as he could tell. Just them and the road and either running out of money or places to run to.  
John removed his hand and sat up, running his fingers through his hair, "Up to you, man. This was your idea."  
Bobby tried to stare at him while keeping his eyes on the road, "My idea?"  
"Who had the car when they nearly ran me down, huh?" John asked, pulling out his lighter and beginning to flick it open and closed. Bobby realised, suddenly, that the damn thing had been out of sight for as long as John had been fiddling with his jeans. Kiss on the cheek not withstanding, that probably explained the incessant fiddling. Not that Bobby had minded the fiddling. It made concentrating a little hard, sure, but... it was nice to have the contact. He cared about him, was sick with anxiety and insomnia when he left, and to know he was there without having to keep looking to check was comforting. He'd almost put an arm around him a few times, but after the brief period his own hand had spent on the other boy's thigh he thought he could be pushing things a little far like that.  
"You came back, though," Bobby replied, frowning a little. Now he really thought about it, it didn't make sense for John to have returned only to run away again. "Why did you come back, John?"  
John slouched down again and put one foot on the dash, "I told you. Every Thelma needs a Louise, man."  
Bobby reached out and gently pushed the foot back down, "It's not our car," he said apologetically.  
"You just ripped out the wiring and stole it, dumbass, I don't think they're gonna care about foot marks."  
Bobby sighed, "I guess..." glancing at the sneakered feet, which were now back on the dash. They were wrapped in a pair of new-looking All Stars (black, naturally), and he wondered where they came from. Either Magneto or a five-finger discount, that much was obvious. For a few minutes they rode in silence, before he tried to ask his question again.  
"Why did you come back, Johnny?" he asked, as a friend – a concerned friend – not someone who was going to judge him negatively whatever answer he gave.  
"Why're you so bothered, Drake?" John asked, rolling his head over against the headrest to look at him, "I'm not here to take you to Magneto."  
"I know that! I just..."  
"Missed me?" John joked, giving a short laugh and looking back to his lighter. It clicked open, the flint scraped round, and it snapped shut.  
Bobby nodded, then realised that John wasn't looking. "Uh... yeah," he said, his mouth feeling oddly dry, and he wished that he'd taken more time packing for the journey and brought refreshments. "Yeah, I did."  
The lighter clicked open, but no flint scraped and it did not snap shut.  
"You for real?" John asked, staring at the lighter, but not fiddling with it any longer.  
Bobby nodded again and felt like an idiot because John was clearly still not looking. "Of course I'm for real. D'you really think I'd joke about that? You're my best friend, John – I was going out of my mind!"  
John said nothing for a few moments, then asked, "What about Rogue? You gonna miss her?"  
"She's... well, I guess it's kinda late now, but she's supposed to be my girlfriend. I'll miss her, but I know that Logan's there to take care of her. I think she'll be happy with that."  
For someone who didn't like awkward silences, John was pretty good at them.  
They drove for a long time without speaking again, the only sound coming from the click-whirr-snap of the lighter in John's hand, until they saw a sign for a gas station not too far ahead.  
"We gotta stop," Bobby sighed, "I hope we haven't been reported yet..."  
"Out here? These guys are practically hicks, they won't know a thing."  
"You sure?"  
"Yeah. And besides, Xavier ain't going to screw around with getting the cops involved – he'll just get onto that big old computer game of his," John assured him, smirking deviously.  
"Well, I hope you're right..."  
They pulled into the gas station forecourt and got out of the car, not bothering to lock the doors as there was no one else around to steal it (again) anyway. Bobby began to fill up the tank and John wandered around a little, stretching his legs and surveying the mainly wooded land around them. Bobby reached into the back seat to get his wallet from bag and headed towards the shop.  
"Hey, hey, hey!" John said, grabbing his arm and pulling him back slightly. "You're actually gonna pay?"  
Bobby stared back at him as if he was insane, "No, I'm gonna go and buy the guy's mom some flowers. What do you think I'm gonna do?"  
"We just get back in and go, man. It's dark, half the lights are out – they'd never be able to give a description of the car – let's just go."  
"No way!" Bobby protested, casting a furtive look towards the guy at the register, who was sitting reading a paper, "John, we're going to be in enough trouble as it is, I'm not doing that too. No."  
"Don't be so fucking prissy, Drake! What do you think we're gonna do when the money runs out? We gotta get away with as much as we can."  
"You know what? We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now I'm going to go in and pay. Do you want anything? A coke? Something to eat?" Bobby asked impatiently, comfortably aware that John's hand was still on his arm.  
John scowled at him and the hand dropped, running almost down to his wrist, "Fine," he snapped, "but I'm coming in with you."  
Ten minutes later they were back on the road. The guy at the register had barely grunted at them when they'd asked if there was some kind of motel nearby and not even looked up from his paper, so they had just gotten back in the car and decided to drive until it started getting light and then sleep it off in the vehicle. Some time around six am, they finally stopped, tucked away down a dirt track leading into some of the dense forestland lining the road.  
"Do we have any blankets or anything?" John asked, eating one of the bars of chocolate he had stashed in his sweater in the gas station – much to Bobby's disapproval.  
"I didn't bring any," Bobby said, thinking how much of an idiot that must make him, "so unless there's something in the trunk..."  
John made an indistinct 'hm' sound, and leaned over to pick up Bobby's bag from the back seat. "So what did you bring, man?" he asked, unzipping the bag and delving in.  
"Uh..." Bobby began, running his hand through his hair and blushing, "I was in a real hurry, actually, but I brought some of your stuff... just in case, y'know?"  
"Cute."  
"I just thought... y'know... everything you were wearing up at Alkali Lake – it was all mine, so..."  
"D'you bring my leather jacket, man?" John asked, reaching the bottom of the bag and looking up at him hopefully.  
"Yeah... uh..." he leaned over between the seats and felt around on the floor. "Got it – here," he said sitting up to hand it to him and finding himself at eye-level with John's mouth as he leaned back against the seat with his head turned to the left. There was a painful twist in his stomach and he took a deep breath, glancing up into the other boy's dark green eyes.  
"Bobby," John said, his voice not sounding quite right as he took the garment from his hands, "I could just kiss you."  
Bobby felt intensely compelled to suggest that he do that, but instead managed to croak, "Oh, that's me – good old Bobby, right?"  
John stared at him strangely for a moment before muttering, "Yeah, I guess..."  
"Y'know what? I'm gonna check the trunk – see what else we have – if anything," Bobby said quickly, almost falling out of the door in his hurry and leaving John to sigh heavily and slouch further down in his seat. He walked around to the back of the car, realising that he was breathing erratically and that it wasn't the air around him making his breath come out in icy gusts. This was weird. There was something about the way John was acting that was kinda off. It felt tense and he kept saying things that Bobby thought... well, tricks he would maybe have tried on Rogue if that was the kind of guy he was. He was pretty sure that the other boy was teasing him, but the fact that all his initial reactions were to go along with it unsettled him a hell of a lot. Yeah, he'd had the odd crush on a guy before, but this was John and John would most probably char-grill him if he actually took him up on it. Never mind the fact that he was seriously tempted to kiss his best friend.  
He looked up and his eyes met with the other boy's as he watched him in the rear-view mirror; he felt his heart skip and wondered when the hell things had changed. Or if maybe they hadn't actually changed at all. John looked away from the mirror, and Bobby opened the trunk, effectively blocking his view into the car with the cover. Less Thelma and Louise than Bonnie and Clyde...So that was what he meant when he had said that. Bobby's mouth had a funny way of running off of its own accord, and this instance was really quite spectacular.  
A brief search of the trunk supplied them with a thick travel rug. But there was only one, and sitting in the front of the car it didn't reach far enough to cover them both, so with some trepidation, Bobby suggested that they sit in the back, where it wasn't necessary to have a 12" gap between them. John gave him another strange look that made him want to ask what the hell the problem was because if he had something to say he'd rather John just said it instead of screwing him around; and then he nodded and climbed over the seat.  
Bobby followed, tossing him the rug and accidentally treading on his fingers as he stepped over. The resulting scuffle as John's fingers were wrenched away and Bobby lost his balance ended with Bobby stuck half between the two seats, one leg with a shoelace wrapped around the handbrake and the rest of him more or less in John's lap. It was one of the few times when Bobby's face was actually particularly warm. The fact that the other boy was looking anywhere but down at him with cheeks like beetroot and his lighter-hand pressed to his forehead was what alerted him to the fact that his left hand had come close to making the whole thing even more painfully embarrassing. Or, painful for John, embarrassing as hell for Bobby.  
"Oops," he offered feebly, and hastily untangled his shoelace before climbing onto the seat beside him. John dumped the blanket unceremoniously into his lap. Casting him a humiliated glance, Bobby unfolded the rug and handed him back one side. They each shifted around for a few minutes, trying to get comfortable, and descended into silence.  
"You okay?" Bobby asked, when he'd finally managed to get over the worst of his mortification.  
"Still kinda cold," John told him, shifting a little nearer. Bobby did the same, until they were sitting with their shoulders pressed together, each with his face inclined slightly towards the other.  
"Better?"  
"Kinda."  
"Kinda? Well, what else is wrong?"  
"Nothing," John said, turning to stare out of the window to darkness between the trees, where the light hadn't yet been able to reach.  
"John?" Bobby ventured carefully, leaning forward to try and catch a look at the other boy's face. "You okay?"  
"I'm fine, I said."  
"Well, y'know, you really don't seem it," Bobby told him, pulling an arm out from under the blanket and rubbing his shoulder sympathetically. "And this whole thing... it's kinda weird, isn't it? You leave with Magneto and then you come back and then we leave and –"  
"Just shut up about it, man," John snapped, turning to scowl at him over his shoulder.  
Bobby pulled back a little, his own face almost mirroring the frown, "John, I just want to know what happened," he said a little impatiently, "because I've done this whole crazy Thelma and Louise thing and I don't know why, yet!"  
"You said we were Bonnie and Clyde," John returned, looking very deliberately back at the window.  
Bobby blinked and took a long and slightly painful breath; he hadn't had enough time to think about this and he knew that if he got this wrong he could truly fuck the whole thing up. But he had to do something, and he gently slipped a hand between John and the back of the seat, "We could be..."  
After a few terrifyingly long moments, John lowered his head and turned to gaze at him uncertainly. "You know they were fucking, right?" he asked, almost managing to sound sarcastic.  
Bobby blushed deep pink and nodded, a little too scared to catch his eye again. He could still feel the other boy staring at him, though, and felt obliged to at least raise his gaze a little, so as not to appear rude.  
John raised his eyebrows questioningly, "You telling me you wanna - ?"  
"No!" Bobby interrupted a little too loudly, but suddenly very sure that however John put it he would make it sound like something sordid and that he didn't think he'd be able to face him again after that.  
"No," John echoed, moving away from him slightly, his voice sounding bitter, "That's what I figured."  
"John – "  
"Hey, don't act like it matters, Drake. You don't actually think I'd wanna screw you, do you?" he said giving him one of his most demeaning looks.  
Bobby felt a lump forming in his throat, and turned to lean his forehead against the back of the driving seat, "I guess not..." he sighed, feeling a near-tsunami of disappointment wash over him. Maybe he had got it wrong, after all.  
There was no response for several minutes. They sat facing in different directions, the whole subject sitting between them like a nasty little demon, poking them with sharp sticks and laughing at their discomfort. Bobby was not enjoying himself. He couldn't even really remember what had possessed him to steal the car in the first place, how he could have thought that John could mean anything by kissing him, spending a couple of hours touching up his leg and – and saying things like 'I could just kiss you' or what he was even playing at, throwing tantrums like this when Bobby had only ever been trying to help him out! Asshole.  
Bobby let his thoughts run away with themselves until John's irritable voice snapped, "Cut it out, man! It's freezing in here!"  
He realised suddenly that he hadn't been paying enough attention and had accidentally frosted all the windows over. John's lips were starting to look a strange, purple-y blue, and he had begun to click with his lighter in an attempt to get a flame going with cold, stiff fingers that weren't complying. "Oh shit, I'm sorry man – I didn't mean to!" Bobby took the lighter from the other boy's hands and lit it for him, so he could swell it to the size of a basketball and warm himself a little. Bobby barely noticed the cold himself.  
"What're you so mad about, Iceman?" John asked when his teeth had stopped chattering. "One minute you're going on about Bonnie and Clyde and the next you turn the damn car into a fucking refrigerator!"  
"What am I so mad about?" Bobby echoed in disbelief, "You're the one who got in a bad mood and won't talk about it!"  
"I did not."  
"You did!"  
"I don't get why you're here, Bobby," John told him coldly, "I don't get why you'd leave your cosy little life at the institute and come do this with me."  
"Because it is you, you jerk!" Bobby exclaimed, wanting to slap the stupid idiot around the head. "I told you this – I missed you, John!"  
"Yeah, whatever..." John muttered, shaking his head and turning away from him again.  
"'Whatever' nothing! I'm telling you that was the reason, okay? I missed you, school wasn't the same without you and I just wanted to be sure you were alright..." Bobby reached out to put his hand back on John's shoulder and looked at the way the golden flickering of the small ball of flames – now reduced to the size of a grapefruit – illuminated his face in the half-light and wondered why he had taken so long to notice – really notice – how attractive his best friend was. Not that it really mattered after what John had said, though.  
"I missed you, too – but since way back when some girl turned up at the school and you started spending all your time with her," John replied coldly, but didn't shake off his hand, as Bobby had been expecting.  
"Hey, that isn't fair, I still spent time with you."  
"Yeah, right..."  
"Oh for God's sake, John – who did I choose in the end? I chose you, didn't I? I left her at the institute and came after you – doesn't that tell you something?"  
John took a slow, deep breath and closed his eyes.  
"John...?" he said, swallowing with difficulty, "Look, if you want..." he paused, not wanting to say what he was about to, in case the other boy agreed to it, "If you want, you can leave me somewhere... if you don't want me around, then..."  
"Don't be such a fucking moron, Drake! I came back for you didn't I?" John said, sounding partly annoyed, partly panicked. He turned around to face him, "You having second thoughts man, is that was this is?"  
"No! No, of course I'm not!" Bobby assured him, staring into his eyes as honestly as he could, barely even realising that his fingers had inched their way from John's shoulder to the side of his neck. He felt the muscles move as the other boy cleared his throat and a slightly uneven breath on his face as he exhaled.  
"Good," John murmured, nodding almost imperceptibly and pushing his hair out of his face.  
"Good," Bobby echoed, allowing him a small smile and unable to think of anything but how much he really wanted to kiss him, his hand almost starting to tingle as he realised that he was actually touching John's neck – bare hand on bare skin – and no one was about to die. So much for it not mattering...  
He was brought back to himself when the other boy's eyebrows furrowed into a slight grimace and he half-whispered, half-squeaked, "Jesus..." before reaching out and, cradling Bobby's face in his hands, pressing their lips together desperately. He tried to pull away after the briefest moment, but Bobby refused to allow it, sliding his hand to the back of John's neck and holding on just firmly enough that he could pull away if he really wanted to.  
It was like no kiss Bobby had ever experienced before; sure, the same could be said of the time he'd kissed Rogue, but somehow this felt different in a completely different way. There was a different kind of urgency to it, a different feeling in the pit of his stomach and infinitely more chance of stubble rash. Not that he cared. All that he cared about was that suddenly everything seemed to make a whole lot more sense, and that John wasn't pulling away in horrified realisation of what they were doing.  
When they were finally forced to pull away in order to breathe, the small gasps of air drawn in during the kiss far from enough to sustain them, each tried to move in closer, hands drifting around attempting to find the best places to grip, legs tangling awkwardly, so that they were both almost sitting in each other's lap. Bobby found himself nuzzling into the side of John's neck and trapped in a bear-hug that was almost preventing him from breathing at all, the other boy's face pressed into is shoulder in a way that couldn't have been remotely comfortable.  
"Well," Bobby said, through an almost-sigh that degenerated into a giggle, "I thought you didn't want to-"  
"I lied," John told him immediately, raising his head to stare into his face almost challengingly, as if daring him to say that he didn't want that sort of relationship.  
"Good," Bobby grinned, kissing him again. "Can I ask you something?" he said after a moment.  
"Yeah, but I'm not gonna promise that I'll answer."  
Bobby gave him another flicker of a smile, and asked, "How long have you, um...?"  
"What? Been into you?" John offered, apparently trying to sound calm and comfortable, but still sounding more than a little awkward.  
"Yeah..."  
"I dunno..."  
"Don't you have any idea? I mean, has it been long or just a recent thing... what?"  
"A while," John admitted, and Bobby heard the sharp ting his lighter made when the lid wasn't quite opened properly.  
"No, leave that thing alone for a while, will you? Can't we just talk about this without you playing with it?" Bobby asked, closing his hand over John's.  
John looked at him as if he wanted to tell him to piss off, but silently pulled his hand away and slipped it into his pocket. To Bobby's pleasant surprise, he returned his empty hand to Bobby's and entwined their fingers.  
"I was gonna say something," John explained, smirking with some kind of private joke, "but I missed my chance, 'cause by the time I had it figured out Rogue was around and suddenly it wasn't the right time any more."  
"Really?" Bobby asked.  
"Scout's honour," the other boy said flatly.  
"You were never a scout..."  
"Yeah, well..."  
Bobby laughed at him and planted another kiss on his lips.  
"But if you're interested, I remember thinking I kinda liked you sometime around last New Year," John added, "'Cause I hated Kitty for getting to kiss you at midnight."  
"Oh God, tell me that wasn't why you burned her chem notes!"  
John grimaced and clicked his teeth, "No can do."  
"Damn, you really are such a bad-ass, St.John Allerdyce," Bobby teased drily.  
"Call me that again, Robert Louise and I kick your ass."  
"It's Louis you jerk!" Bobby argued, punching him in the shoulder.  
"Whatever. Either way, you're my bitch."  
"I am not!"  
"Yeah, yeah, keep telling yourself that, man..."  
By the time the Sun was fully raised and daylight spilled through the trees, it found them curled up along the back seat of the car, Bobby leaning back against John's chest and the other boy's arms wrapped around him possessively, his chin pressed against the top of his head. They'd talked about everything – from what to tell Bobby's parents to where to go and how much squirrels looked like humans, when one scampered onto the hood of the car and stared at them for a moment before running off – and now they were both drowsy, neither having slept all night.  
"So, I guess we're heading South, then?" John concluded, yawning and trying to stretch without disturbing Bobby too much.  
Bobby nodded against his chest and also yawned, settling back down when John had finished. "Best I can think of..."  
"Mexico?" John suggested.  
"I don't like spicy food too much, but why not?" Bobby shrugged.  
"Then we'd better take a couple of hours and then get outta here, we're talking a fucking long way, man."  
"S'okay," Bobby said through another yawn, linking his fingers with one of he hands across his chest, "We'll just keep going until they stop us..."  
John looked down at him for a moment, and kissed the top of his head, wondering if Bobby even remembered how either of the films ended. 


End file.
